Are you troubled by strange expressions like 'THACO', 'Roll and Keep' and 'Exploding dice'?

Do you experience feelings of dread at the sight of strangely shaped dice and thick rulebooks?

Have you wanted to have a try at a system game, but not known how or where to start?

If the answer is yes then don't wait another minute, pick up your keyboard and call the professionals

Our courteous and efficient staff is on call 24 hours12 hours6 at odd times of the day to solve all your system gaming experience needs.

Now, roll for initiative.

Ok, here's the deal. I know there are at least a few people out there who would like to try a system game, but for one reason or another haven't. What I am proposing is to run a short adventure (or possibly a series of them, depending on what people want) to let anyone who hasn't tried system gaming, or perhaps just who hasn't tried the particular system in question, get their feet wet.

Depending on peoples wishes I can either guide them through character creation, or put together some pregenerated characters and let people pick.

Then, off to Mumble we go, and for a couple of hours, we can take you off on a weird and wonderful adventure. The worst that can happen is that you'll go insane and be eaten by something horrible from beyond time and space, but that's only if someone wants to run Call of Cthulhu :)

I have a variety of one shot adventures I can run for people. If any other GMs wish to toss their hats into the ring to join me in this, and widen the pool of systems and adventures, feel free to do so.

For the moment, I'll offer to run a short adventure in the following:Star Wars Saga Edition (Rebellion era)Legend of the Five Rings (4th edition) Dresden FilesScion

If anyone is interested, either as a player, or wanting to GM one shots of their own, feel free to post here.

Count me as part of the "helpful staff". I am also available to explain how and why to use a system in a roleplay game. I can also help with rules I know, and just run a one-shot game.

Can't get Mumble to work with my computer, and I'm not really pressed to. I can offer Skype, YIM or forum games, though.

System-wise, tell me what you want to play, and I'll offer a system, and probably an easy one, too. Or you can wait for me to compile a list of systems. This will likely take a while, though.

Group activity sounds best to me, too !

After much deliberation and careful considerations, I decided to be the dealer of FREE (or sometimes, just cheap) systems!

See, many systems cost money. I think it would be a bad idea to ask you to pay for a system if you're not sure whether you want any system at all! Besides, you might like the idea, but not the first system I offer.On the other hand, there are fully professional systems that have free versions, just for this reason. Some systems have free variants with less art, some have published their rules on the net after the books went out of print, and so on. I often like them better than many expensive ones.So, with this in mind, my list is to follow!

1. FATE - Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment

FATE is universal, meaning we can do pretty much any setting with it - from the Wheel of Time, to Star Rangers (well, if you can get me to run Star Rangers). It is narratively-oriented, meaning it approaches the roleplaying less from the angle of "playing a character, the story is what the characters do", and more like writing a story, where the characters are defined by their role in the story. Neither approach guarantees a better story, or better roleplaying, mind you! They are just the way different people like to approach their games. The trick here is to pick a system that fits your approach. Or you could try a new approach.And of course, you could also find that you like them both in different ways. That's how it worked with me.HairyHeretic already suggested to run Dresden Files, which is FATE variant. If you want to try FATE, but not with a modern supernatural story like Dresden Files, I could help with this. But really, I recommend HH, he's a great GM!

2. Basic RP/Mini 6

b]Mini 6[/b] and Basic RolePlaying are just as universal, meaning we can again use them for almost anything, but more oriented towards the approach "control your character and your character only, and whatever happens, is the story of this character". Neither approach guarantees a better story, or better roleplaying, mind you! They are just the way different people like to approach their games. The trick here is to pick a system that fits your approach. Or you could try a new approach.And of course, you could also find that you like them both in different ways. That's how it worked with me.Why two systems, you might ask? BRP is generally considered grittier, so I'll pick the one I consider better-suited for the game after we discuss a game.

3. Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist Sci-fi

Eclipse Phase has a setting where gender roles are rather complicated by the ability of technology to upload your conscience in a new body of whatever gender you wish. It is best for post-scarcity, transhumanist sci-fi and comes with its own fully-fedged, original setting. Most of the reading is about the setting. It's published under CC license, so you basically buy it if you want to send the authors money (like I did). Or you delete it, if you don't like it. Don't ask for this if you would mind reading a novel, though.

Talislanta has a cool fantasy setting. The system itself is easy as a breeze, I have written a summary that's less than 400-words long. Of course, that doesn't include the setting, you get to read it separately. Although it could be used for other settings, there is usually a better-fitting system. What it fits best is the setting of Talislanta.

5. Barbarians of Lemuria: S&S

Barbarians of Lemuria is a simple game geared towards Howardian Sword-and-Sorcery, although it could fit Sword and Planet with some tweaking. If you want a real simple game for some simple fun with a character like the young Conan, or young Red Sonya, this is the game I'd use.

I don't think I have the time to GM a game, but I can at least help out with Star Wars Saga Edition. I can help people create characters, and I've also got that Dawn of Defiance Campaign that Wizards of the Coast had put up for free online while they still had the rights to create a Star Wars game. ^^;

I'd love to set up a couple systems to get peoples feet wet. Those I typically run are nWoD, Pathfinder, and exalted. Not sure with the ones I have up that there would be time, I'm also not sure if I would be much help considering I just started play by post as is.

Well, we have a variety of options. The voice server, IM and standard forum play. I thought the voice server would be the handiest, simply for the real time aspect of it. If someone is new to a system and has questions, I'm sure they'd appreciate having them answered then and there :)

Iíve never heard of some of these but Iím interested in learning whatever systems people are willing to teach. Iíve mostly played D&D (thou not much of it and Iíve had help making characters and leveling up), I also played the marvel role playing game and a zombie game that if it had a name other then zombie I donít remember it but in both cases I only played once and with per made characters, if anyone has ether of those games and would be willing to run them I would be interested.

Ok, judging by peoples preferences, how about Star Wars for a first try? The system is relatively simple to learn, and most people are familiar with the Rebellion era of the timeline, so you should have the background information as well.

My preference would be to run it live, for a couple of hours, possibly more depending on peoples schedules. I'd like to use Mumble, but can use IM, Skype, or possibly IRC (though I'd need to reinstall that as I haven't used it in years.). I'm in the GMT timezone, for reference.

For characters, I can either help you through the character creation process, or you tell me what sort of character you want to play, and I'll put it together. If we're going to play begining characters, I'm afraid that rules out Jedi though.

After much deliberation and careful considerations, I decided to be the dealer of FREE (or sometimes, just cheap) systems!

See, many systems cost money. I think it would be a bad idea to ask you to pay for a system if you're not sure whether you want any system at all! Besides, you might like the idea, but not the first system I offer.On the other hand, there are fully professional systems that have free versions, just for this reason. Some systems have free variants with less art, some have published their rules on the net after the books went out of print, and so on. I often like them better than many expensive ones.So, with this in mind, my list is in my first post here. I'll repost it here, as well.Click on the spoilers, grasshopper !

1. FATE - Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment

FATE is universal, meaning we can do pretty much any setting with it - from the Wheel of Time, to Star Rangers (well, if you can get me to run Star Rangers). It is narratively-oriented, meaning it approaches the roleplaying less from the angle of "playing a character, the story is what the characters do", and more like writing a story, where the characters are defined by their role in the story. Neither approach guarantees a better story, or better roleplaying, mind you! They are just the way different people like to approach their games. The trick here is to pick a system that fits your approach. Or you could try a new approach.And of course, you could also find that you like them both in different ways. That's how it worked with me.HairyHeretic already suggested to run Dresden Files, which is FATE variant. If you want to try FATE, but not with a modern supernatural story like Dresden Files, I could help with this. But really, I recommend HH, he's a great GM!

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2. Basic RP/Mini 6

b]Mini 6[/b] and Basic RolePlaying are just as universal, meaning we can again use them for almost anything, but more oriented towards the approach "control your character and your character only, and whatever happens, is the story of this character". Neither approach guarantees a better story, or better roleplaying, mind you! They are just the way different people like to approach their games. The trick here is to pick a system that fits your approach. Or you could try a new approach.And of course, you could also find that you like them both in different ways. That's how it worked with me.Why two systems, you might ask? BRP is generally considered grittier, so I'll pick the one I consider better-suited for the game after we discuss a game.

3. Eclipse Phase: Transhumanist Sci-fi

Eclipse Phase has a setting where gender roles are rather complicated by the ability of technology to upload your conscience in a new body of whatever gender you wish. It is best for post-scarcity, transhumanist sci-fi and comes with its own fully-fedged, original setting. Most of the reading is about the setting. It's published under CC license, so you basically buy it if you want to send the authors money (like I did). Or you delete it, if you don't like it. Don't ask for this if you would mind reading a novel, though.

Talislanta has a cool fantasy setting. The system itself is easy as a breeze, I have written a summary that's less than 400-words long. Of course, that doesn't include the setting, you get to read it separately. Although it could be used for other settings, there is usually a better-fitting system. What it fits best is the setting of Talislanta.

Barbarians of Lemuria: S&S

Barbarians of Lemuria is a simple game geared towards Howardian Sword-and-Sorcery, although it could fit Sword and Planet with some tweaking. If you want a real simple game for some simple fun with a character like the young Conan, or young Red Sonya, this is the game I'd use.

Either way, I'd just like to reiterate that I'm available to help with Saga Edition character creation. ^^; I've got the Core Rules, the Clone Wars Campaign Guide, and the Scavenger's Guide to Droids, so I should be able to help bring to life a variety of different character concepts.